Rating: 
Summary: Unhappy Heroine
Review: I must admit I cheated and saw the movie before I read this book. I've had the novel for so long, but never got around to it. The film was stunning and I was sobbing at the end. Now after the reading the book - I am pleased to say the film follows the book closely and Gillian Anderson really captures the moral complexities of Lily Bart. I love how Wharton was able to find the hypocrisy in nineteenth century high society. Not only did she expose its follies, she also unveiled its fragility. Lily could have easily maneuvered her way out of nearing poverty, but she possesses a kind of morality that her privileged, back-stabbing friends do not. It is only by turning their backs on the truth do her peers hold up their shameful facade. I do find it disturbing that Lily believes her only way out is death...that she has nothing else to offer the world. Wharton uses this tactic, though, to symbolically represent the rich snubbing the poor - how they exist without even seeing them. However, the most intriguing part about this novel is Lily's relationship with Seldon. In the beginning, he seems to always remind her of her vain attempts at marrying rich men. She can't go through with her designs, though. He strings her along, all the while he's having this under-handed liason with one of the most pretentious women of their social circle. Lily never gets to tell him how much she really loves him. Her pride reverts to bravery as she realizes she must face her future without his companionship. Does she die for an empty purse or a broken heart? I choose the latter.
Rating: 
Summary: Printing error seriously mars "Authoritative Text" edition
Review: The House of Mirth is a classic, and worthy of the praise found in the other reviews on this page. However, BUYER BEWARE of the "Authoritative Text" edition edited by Shari Benstock. Glaring typesetting errors make this edition an awkward, interrupted read at best. Very unfortunate treatment of a work of this stature.
Rating: 
Summary: no pity for Lily Bart
Review: I was looking forward to reading this book for a long time, but found it totally lame. Why, exactly, am I supposed to identify or sympathize with Lily? I found her greedy and stupid and totally lacking in self control or basic common sense. I admit a century has passed between her life and mine, but her problems remind me of my contemporaries who have no money because they *spend* too much money. How is that heroic? Ironically, as she's whining about being relegated to second-tier society circles, she describes them as painters and actors and a crowd with a lot more character than her high society friends. Sounds like victory rather than chrisis, but Lily finds it dreadfully "dingy". Boo Hoo. Get a grip Lily, millions of people live without money. Ultimately, it's not all that tragic.
Rating: 
Summary: Literary Classic, still relevant today
Review: One of my all time favorite books (and authoress!) I cannot recommend this touching, entertaining tale enough. The character of Lily Bart is one that you immediately identify with. Her abuse by the society she lives in, is disturbing. How far women have come today, but how much also remains the same....
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Summary: It's wonderful
Review: I went to see the movie and was intrigued enough by the performances that I thought I would read the book. I am not usually a reader of this type of novel, but I wanted to see if the movie went by the book. Well, being the X-Files fan that I am I will not degrade the movie, but the book did add a lot of details about Lily's personality that the movie did not give insight into. It was very well written and kept me coming back for more. If other Edith Wharton novels are half as good I could become one of her biggest fans.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best novels ever written!
Review: Edith Wharton's "House of Mirth" is now one of my favorite books. It was the first period novel I've ever read but now I have read many more and this still remains to be my favorite. I initially read the book because I am a fan of Gillian Anderson, who plays Lily Bart in the film adaptation. I haven't seen the film yet, but it would be a great feat if the film was better than the novel. I recommend the book to everyone.
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Summary: Hauntingly horrible!!
Review: I found the book the House of Mirth to be totally horrible. I found that learning all about her life, money troubles, sex sacndals, and worries were tiresome and uninteresting. The writer Edith Whaton has had some of the common probalems related to the book and seems to me as a cry for help. This book upset me, as I enjoyed the wonderful beginning with cheerful Selden, but became hauntingly horrible within the next few chapters. The book went on for much to long and showed that Wharton has no self control over how boring her books can become in the long 400 some pages. I belive that if you enjoy a book about a womans horrible life go ahead and read it, but if you don't like books that could just bring you down after a few chapters...find some other book, like Harry Potter!
Rating:
Summary: More Haunting Than Gatsby
Review: As an indictment of the carelessly cruel amorality of the rich, I thought this book was far more powerful than The Great Gatsby, and Lily Bart a much more poignant and sympathetic protaganist than Jay Gatsby. Though written over a century ago, it's still as timely now as it was then, showing the endurance of a true classic.
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Summary: We all wear blindfolds of our own making
Review: It's an extraordinary author that can make a reader love and hate her heroine. Edith Wharton is an extraordinary author, and her heroine of The House of Mirth, Lily Bart, is a wonderfully complex heroine. This sad tale of a woman's struggle against a future prescribed for her by society is made poignant by Lily's inability -- or is it unwillingness? -- to muster the courage to turn her feet away from the path paved in gold in order to find true happiness. As financial circumstances force her to take the first step toward ruin, she not only allows herself to be blinded to the truth of her situation, but impatiently takes the blindfold and ties it on firmly herself. She then begins her inevitable, painfully slow fall, touching but not grasping the hand Lawrence Selden holds out to save her. Selden does love her and does want to help her, but he wears his own blindfold, one created by him to save him from the extremes of life, even the extreme pleasure he would find in a life with Lily Bart. In the end, the fear that has kept them apart throughout the novel brings them together in a tragic end. This is a book that's extremely difficult to put down, and one you'll want to read again and again, always somehow in the hopes of a different ending for Lily and Lawrence.
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Summary: MY FRIEND LILY BART
Review: I stumbled upon a review of the recent film of THE HOUSE OF MIRTH in the TLS and, in order to have the novel firmly fixed in my mind (that is, before the lush, seductive images of film forever eradicated Wharton's novel from me) I dragged my copy off the shelf for a re-read. It had been 16 years since I last read of Lily Bart and her life, and I didn't realize how much I had missed her. For me, this is one of the great reading experiences, one of a handful that make reading a book the deeply moving and human exchange that it is. Despite the distance of wealth, property, time and manners, Wharton manages to make Lily's world and life palpable to anyone who will listen. The clash of money, morals, personality and circumstance is infinitely developed and played out in front of a never fading natural world. Once again, I was deeply moved by Lily Bart and at the end, felt I had lost someone myself.
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